


Prometheus

by nogoaway



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Humor, Season/Series 09, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 22:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3397829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nogoaway/pseuds/nogoaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's not sure until the day he loses the eye, but afterwards York's certain:<br/>The Director is trying to kill him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

"I should have known," says Leonard Church "that hiring an infiltrations expert would have certain downsides."

York freezes, and not just metaphorically. He actually goes cold with fear. It’s something that hasn’t happened to him in a long time, a decade at least, and he has to remind himself to breathe. It feels like his entire spine has locked up. He tries to turn around, but can’t make his head move.

"Now, don’t let me disturb you," there’s the sound of the Director settling into a chair in the room behind him: creaking leather, a hush of fabric "it’s very compelling reading. I should know."

York carefully closes the leather-bound journal and slides it back into the filing cabinet, where it rests in a row of identical books, their unmarked spines set tightly one after the other. He didn’t understand much of what he’d read there, but it had become clear very quickly that there were personal entries in between the extensive theoretical notes and experimental observations. Certain words stood out again and again, none of them pretty: trauma, tertiary dissociation, ego death, fracture, stress scenario, existential terror. Horror. That word, “horror”- over and over again, until it lost its meaning for York.

"It’s actually safer, these days, to use physical media. Barring eventualities like this one, of course."

"I can explain," York says, and finally manages to turn around. His palms are beginning to sweat inside the microfiber gloves, which is strange considering that they feel just as icy as the rest of him.

The Director is watching York from the high-backed chair behind his massive mahogany desk, fingers steepled in front of his chin. The light from the solitary lamp has blanked out the lenses of his glasses. He looks like a vengeful god and York is very, very afraid of this man, always has been, but has never been able to pinpoint quite why—

A marginal note he’d only glanced over swims suddenly to mind— _in war, the damage we do to others can but pale in comparison to the horrors we inflict on ourselves. the true monstrosity— that is, the most total and complete dehumanization— is to become the mirror image of that Nietzschean abyss, to excavate ones self so deeply that there is nothing left to stare back from, no point on which to stand. to become less than human, and to do so systematically, intentionally, relentlessly— there are no counts for such casualties, no tribunals. there is no one left to judge._

Right. Because of things like _that_.

"Sir?" he asks, when he can’t stand the silence any more.

"I’m not interested in your explanations, Agent," says the Director, louder than is necessary, but not loud enough to cover up the sound of a drawer opening in that giant desk, and York is moving behind the file cabinet before he even realizes he’s thought _gun_. At least his reflexes have turned back on.

They stare at each other over the top of the cabinet. York can’t see either of his hands.

Footsteps in the hall, and then a grunt appears in the doorway, wearing a red jumpsuit that tells York she’s from Communications.

"I have that mani—" she glances at York, and frowns "that information you requested, sir."

"Bring it here," the drawer slides shut, and York hears a magnetic lock click "Agent York was just leaving."

York leaves.

 

* * *

_A photo-copied excerpt of the Diagnostic Statistician’s Manual XXVII, published 2405:_

_"…diagnosis of 300.14 rather than 300.15 requires the individual to fulfill all criteria in Clusters A through C, although many 300.14 patients display amnesia for Cluster A elements and may not self-report identity disruptions. The assessor is encouraged to make careful note of any recurrent changes in characteristic thought patterns, behaviors, moods, and feelings that may indicate a switch in identity states, particularly if these changes are preceded by stress scenarios…"_

* * *

 

It’s Monday night, and York can’t stop thinking about the desk drawer.

It was probably nothing, he reasons, as he feeds another mag into his SMG and fires mindlessly at the moving laser FILSS draws across the wall. York’s always been a little prone to paranoia, and Leonard Church has always made him uneasy. Even if the Director did keep a firearm in that drawer (right side, easily within reach of his dominant hand), it didn’t mean he was going to pull it. He was probably just trying to make York nervous. Maybe he was planning to threaten him a little.

"You’re overreacting," he says out loud, and fires wide.

It wouldn’t make any sense for the Director to shoot his top infiltrations asset in his office with the door open, and over what? A little snooping in his diaries? There weren’t even any dick pics in there. Who cared about Leonard Church’s weird obsession with dissociative identity disorder?

"Round complete," FILSS drones, in her soothing feminine monotone "a 75% decrease in accuracy in the last four seconds of that round, Agent York. Are you feeling alright?"

FILSS’s questions always sound like statements, to York. He gets the impression she doesn’t like him, much.

"I’m fine, sweetheart," he returns, and clicks in another magazine "run it for me again, okay?"

The laser flickers to life again. York fires, two shots, but the recoil feels a fraction too light on the second.

"The hell?" he mutters, and shakes his head. Losing it. He fires again.

The barrel explodes in his face.

"Fuck," he yells, through the sudden cloud of smoke, and drops the SMG, kicking it away blindly as he covers his face with his hands.

"You have ceased firing," FILSS observes "would you like me to suspend the simulation round?"

"Cancel round," York chokes, when he’s sure all his facial features are mostly intact. His hands are bloody, and he’s pretty sure shrapnel took out a hunk of his right eyebrow. He closes his teeth around a shard of metal in the meat of his left hand and yanks it out, spits red and charcoal grey with a clink onto the concrete.

"York! Are you okay?" There’s footsteps pounding across the training floor. North, and someone else.

"Gun blew up."

"Go ahead and state the obvious while I get a med kit," North tells him "unless you need a medic?"

"Get him a medic." It’s Carolina. She’s picking up the SMG and flicking the safety back on. "He’s a mess."

"No medics," York waves the last of the smoke away "head wounds bleed. I’m fine." North’s footsteps are hurried, but he’s heading to the locker room, not the med bay. Good old North.

"A squib load," Carolina sounds surprised "that… shouldn’t happen, with a caseless model."

"Lemme see."

Carolina hands him the SMG. The barrel is peeled outwards on top like an unzipped plastic bag and he can see what’s left of a melted round jammed up in the muzzle. It’s still warm.

North comes back within thirty seconds and refuses to look at the gun until he’s sure York can track him waving a finger around his face and recite his full name and birth date. York’s pretty sure he’s just trying to get a middle name out of him, but joke’s on North, York doesn’t have one. (Unlike Nick Borys Lysenko. Seriously. _Borys_.)

"Come on," York whines, and waves him away with one hand while pressing a pad of gauze to his eyebrow with the other "you’re the firearms expert."

"Carolina’s right, it was a squib round," North says, but backs off.

"You didn’t even look."

"Nothing else turns a gun barrel into a pipe bomb, York," he looks anyway, traces a pointed finger around where the barrel is bulged out like a snake that’s swallowed a baseball.

"It is odd, though," Carolina tries to pry the round out with her thumb, but gives up almost immediately.

"Headspace problem," North offers "deformed bullet, out-of-battery fire, could be any number of things. Just be happy it happened here, and not in the field."

"You’re lucky," Carolina affirms "if you hadn’t been burning the midnight oil in here, you would have used that mag tomorrow."

"Yeah," York stares at the pock-marked wall "imagine that."

 

* * *

_A piece of yellow construction paper, folded four-square. The writing is in pink and green crayon, clearly a child’s, but set very carefully in the boundaries of faint pencil lines drawn with a ruler: HAPPY FATHER’S DAY. There’s a drawing on the bottom that looks like something between a horse and a dog, but it’s eating a flower, so York’s money is on horse. He doesn’t open it._

* * *

  
York can’t sleep the rest of the night, and he’s suited up and mission-ready long before their alarm goes off at 0430 and Wash stumbles groggily out of the other bunk. York doesn’t wait for him, and if Wyoming and CT are surprised to see him in the hangar alone and five minutes early, then they keep it to themselves.

"Opening file oh one point oh four five," Wyoming says over the open comm, and yawns "let’s make it happen, lads. Excuse me. And our fair lady."

CT tilts her helmet in his direction. She checks her ammo over and over, touches her twin KA-BARs with light fingers. It takes York a moment to realize she does everything in threes. Well, he’s seen stranger rituals.

"Where _is_ Washington?” Wyoming’s the only freelancer who uses Wash’s full designation, and York knows he just does it to be an asshole. Wash seems to think it means Wyoming doesn’t like him, though. (‘It’s so alienating,’ Wash had complained, over the hiss of the shower ‘it’s like he doesn’t think I’m part of the team.’ ‘Have you tried asking him to scrub your back?’ York had asked ‘Go on, don’t be a baby. Tell him all about your great big man crush on him. I’m sure he’d be flatt— Ow!’ Soap had been thrown at great force.)

"Here," Wash says, over the comm, and then eight seconds later he’s clomping into the hangar, tailing their pilot. It’s not Four-Seven, so York lets Wyoming deal with him. York’s not good with new people.

In the drop-ship he watches CT touch her left wrist three times as they take off, and three times as they land.

"Do you think we’ll crash," he asks, "if you don’t?"

"What?" she snaps, and then holds a hand up "never mind. We’re go in thirty. No chatter on the line." Within seconds she’s hauling her bike out from the storage nook in the back of the troop bay and kicking the engine over to check the meters. Wash is already out of the bay and securing a perimeter around the LZ, the little over-achiever.

"Go in twenty," Wyoming confirms. "Mark?"

"Sync," they say, in unison. CT’s bike hums, and then she’s tearing out of the bay and onto the service road. Both bike and woman vanish long before they should exit his field of vision, but the rut her tires are pressing into the dirt shoots onward.

York just shrugs and opens his usual one-to-one with Wash. Wash rarely answers him in the field, but York’s got this problem where he focuses better when he’s running his mouth, and Wash has proven to be least distracted by it. (‘It’s kind of like sports commentary,’ Wash had explained to North, who just shook his head in incredulity ‘I get jumpy, when it’s too quiet. Bad jumpy’.)

"She likes that active camo unit," York mutters, without the slightest hint of jealousy, thank you very much.

Wash ignores him. “LZ’s clear,” he announces instead, and York rolls his eyes, shoots back a mild “Gold star for initiative, rookie.” Wash doesn’t respond.

York unhooks his own bike. It feels a little heavier than usual, but CT’s probably checked the gas three times and topped it off each time.

"Five," Wash says, unnecessarily, and then, "We’re go."

"Shoo," York tells him, and kicks the bike on. It purrs steadily. "If you’re late getting to that redundancy, my ass is grass." Without management-level biometrics, the compound’s safe has to be triggered simultaneously from on site and from the remote lock half a klick from their LZ. Doubtless whoever is guarding the redundancy is in constant contact with the main facility. Ideally there’s only one and Wyoming can just take the guy out at distance before he radios in, but York really doubts it. They have to time this perfectly.

Wyoming and Wash vanish west into the trees on foot as York eases the bike onto the service road, following CT’s tire tracks. “Bike feels heavier than usual,” he says, idly “does your girlfriend have OCD?”

"She’s not my girlfriend," Wash says, for the millionth time. "And what the fuck kind of non-sequitur—?"

"Never mind," York tells him, and shifts down a gear "you ever have a dud mag on an SMG? I mean a real dud, not like shit jamming. I’m talking genuine catastrophic failure—"

"Guys?" CT’s voice on the open comm is calm, but she’s clearly unhappy "we got way more company here than aerial recon anticipated."

"Give me numbers," York pulls the aerial photos on his HUD. They’re very low res. While Pelicans aren’t exactly high tech spy craft, this shit looks like MOI dock crew just taped a camera to the bottom.

"A dozen, easy," CT says. "three on the cordon."

"Shit," Wash hisses "I _told_ Wyoming to go with you, I _got_ this—”

"We have _no_ recon on your end, Rambo,” York reminds him “We can do three. If CT’s willing to do her Invisible Man impression once we breach the cordon, I’ll lead the rest of them on a merry chase.”

"I need you on the lock," CT says "this isn’t a two-man job. We have to pull out."

"It’s a basic encryption, just like your field manual" York reassures her "just time it with Wash and you’ll be fine. Or call me. I’ll walk you through it."

To her credit, she doesn’t waste any more time arguing. York’s technically Alpha leader, he gets to make the call. “Fine. I’m stashing the bike, though, it makes too much noise.”

"We’re here," Wyoming informs them "with a welcoming party of two. Just say the word."

York drives up on CT wrestling her bike down into the ditch along the side of the road. He can tell just from her posture that she’s nervous, and then she flickers out again and there’s nothing there but oddly refracted light and blurred trees behind her.

York lets his own ride idle as he unstraps the SMG from his back and settles the stock against his right shoulder. All those childhood years spent riding his bike around with no handlebars are about to pay off.

"And momma said I wouldn’t amount to nothing," he muses.

"I hate it when we improvise," Wash informs him on the one-to-one "just for the record."

"Come on, Wash," York says, when Connie’s suit has pinged on his HUD next to the three hostiles "don’t be such a fucking new guy." Then he guns it around the corner.

Three semi-automatics lift immediately to his sight-line, but CT’s already got the leftmost one in a choke hold, and a fraction of a second later York’s picked off the middle one and Righty. There’s a camera visible on the top of the fence, and York waves at it as the alarms start blaring and a spot of blood, seemingly floating in midair, hustles into the compound at waist height.

"Wipe your utensils, Buttercup," he tells her, and has the suspicion that she’s giving him the finger.

Within thirty seconds a posse of helmeted guards and two ATVs come roaring up to the gate. York counts two in each vehicle and two on foot. That leaves three for CT to deal with, if he’s being optimistic, and York’s always optimistic. He pivots the bike back the way he came, and revs it.

"Heya, fellas," he shouts "I got kinda turned around. Can anyone tell me how to get to Candyland?"

"You’re an idiot," Wash tells him, but most of it gets lost in the gunfire as York peels out down the road, firing blindly back over his shoulder. When he makes the corner he dares to glance back and finds the ATVs hot on his tail; one of the pedestrians has grabbed hold of a side-rail and is dangling from the cab with his rifle out, and the other is straight up running after them. Four for CT to deal with, then, once he comes to his senses and turns back around.

"Seriously," York says "it’s like they’ve never seen a goddamn movie."

A bullet wings him on the left shoulder and he hisses, straightening the bike. “How you doin’, CT?”

There’s a wet coughing noise over the comm when she flips her radio on, but it’s too masculine to be her. “Had to remove an obstacle,” she says “I’m at the safe, and oh shit York, what am I looking at, here?”

"Am I go?" Wash asks, and then curses, switching to the main comm "Connie. Are we go over here?"

"I don’t know, I don’t understand what I’m—," she hisses, and York cuts her off before she can get any more panicked.

"Tell me what it looks like."

"I don’t know, okay, there’s fucking lights and shit!" Yeah, that’s panic.

"Just go, Bravo," York says "We’ll do it together. Describe it to me."

"Belay that, Wash," Connie snaps, and York can hear shuffling on her end "I’m serious, York, there isn’t even an interface. It’s _all_ lights.”

What the fuck. “That’s a holo-lock,” he says, stupidly, and realizes he’s tightened his grip on the brake when the bike groans beneath him and a spray of bullets rattles off the chassis. He lets up immediately, and the bike jerks forward. “Intel said an encryption.”

"Well intel was _wrong_ , York,” CT shouts, and there’s gunfire. It takes him a moment to understand that it’s on her end. “So either start talking me through this or abort, because this was _not_ in my fucking field manual.”

"Okay, okay. There’s gotta be a serial on the side. Read it to me." It’s possible they can still salvage this. York’s already mapping out in his head how he can swing a turn-around, stall out at least one of the ATVs and leave the bastards stranded out here as he guns it to the compound— he cranks it to fifth gear.

"Eight-Six-Tango-Six-Lima-Mike-Zulu."

That’s a Charon _Bluebell_ model, and he doesn’t have his bump keys. “Get out of there,” he tells her.

"Is that really—" that’s Wyoming, and York is not in the mood.

"Get _out_ of there,” he repeats, louder this time “you too, Bravo. Rendezvous at the LZ, I’ll lose these chumps and double back.”

"Can’t we just—" Wash starts, but CT’s suit is already moving on his HUD, and a red flicker from his BioScan tells him her camo unit is damaged.

"I couldn’t do it either," York tells him, on the one-to-one "I don’t have the gear on me."

"Someone fucked up," Wash realizes, and he sounds surprised, like he’s not used to things going badly and it _not_ being his fault.

"Shit happens," York confirms, and slams on the gas.

 

* * *

_A sheet of graph paper, titled “Possible Fracture Scenarios beyond Halsey’s Dendritic Growth Model” with certain squares filled in with pencil. Turned on its side, the black shape resulting looks like a tulip. Below it, in blue pen: Mandelbrot z sub (n+1) = [z sub (n)]^2 + c (bounded). Consider also Julia set and Lyapunov. Duration of stress scenario prior to fracture may alter growth parameters._

* * *

 

They spend the ride back in complete silence, though York suspects it’s for different reasons. Wash is clearly sulking, and CT’s mood is so black it’s suffocating, but Wyoming is experienced enough not to take this kind of shit too hard anymore, and York’s mostly thinking about his lunch. It’s the second Tuesday of the month, and if they make it back before 1400, the mess might still have po’boys. He considers radioing North to get him to set one aside, but if Connie hears him talking about sandwiches in this dismal carnival of failure, she might actually kill him. Instead he sits tight, tries not to tap his foot too loudly, and estimates how many pounds of fried shrimp the MOI has to order to feed a crew of 720 people, some of whom are vegetarian or otherwise averse to shellfish. It’s still a lot of shrimp.

Connie’s storming out of the carrier before they’ve even fully taxied to a stop, and Wash follows a second after, his shoulders hunched. Wyoming surprises him by moving the other direction, towards the cabin, and soon York can hear the vague register of his accent as he converses with the pilot. The two of them pile out of the front hatch, looking thick as thieves. Whatever.

York’s pulling the bike out of the carrier to store when something scratches him loudly on the leg plate. He crouches down to get a better look. The rear wheel well is dented with bullets, but what’s really out of place is a wire.

It’s small, uninsulated, and appears to have been shot in half. York follows it up under the chassis with his gloved hand and finds something round and hard, a disc about the size of his fist. He yanks it out, and it gives easily, like it’s been stuck on with something tacky instead of properly screwed in.

It’s a breaching charge, the kind they use to blow doors. York has a half-dozen like it in his go-bag— they’re low yield, but strong enough to knock a steel deadbolt out of whack on a concrete reinforced door. Certainly enough to turn a bike with a full tank of gas into a flaming metal death-trap. His grip on it tightens reflexively as a chill runs through his body. Then he sets it, very carefully, on the floor, and draws his KA-BAR.

It’s not exactly regulation for unexploded ordnance, but something’s going on here that York doesn’t like, and there’s no one else even remotely in the blast radius. Besides, what is he gonna do, call Wyoming? “Hey, buddy, someone thought it would be a great prank to outfit my ride with PETN, be a bro and disable it for me”. Not gonna happen.

He puts himself between the bike and the charge, and very carefully pries the lid off the casing with the point of his knife. The detcord coiled inside the little tin is frayed on the end not connected to a block of C-4, and he can see where the tiny wire vanishes into the packed powder explosive. He yanks it out. It’s just plain copper wire. It could have come out of any device. They store the stuff by the ton on giant spools in Provisions.

York tucks the length of detcord into the tin and screws the lid back on. He’ll drop it in Processing on the way to the mess; they’ll just figure it’s a dud.

He’s lying on his back under the bike, searching for the other end of that wire when North radios him. The crackle of the comm from his discarded helmet startles him, and he jerks his head up, banging it on the muffler.

"Ow, fuck!" He grasps blindly for the helmet, drags it on over his head. " _What_?”

"Testy. Where are you? I saved you a sandwich."

York smiles despite himself. North is the best.

"Dock 18, trying to figure out who I pissed off, lately," he says, and his HUD picks up a crooked line of Atomic number 29 rippling along the chassis, highlights it day-glo orange. Well, _duh_. He should have just used the suit in the first place.

"That’s a long list," North muses.

"Hey. I’m a likable guy," York protests, but he’s not really paying attention to the conversation anymore. That wire terminates at the gear shift, at the fifth notch. It should have blown the breaching charge the moment he hit fifty. Would have blown, if it hadn’t been for Goon #5’s fantastic aim. "You like me. You saved me a sandwich."

"I’ve seen your file," North reminds him "Foxtrot-12 is wanted by three separate Colonial Militia in Epsilon Eridani _alone_. That’s not what I would call likeable.”

"Beta Gabriel doesn’t count," York responds automatically "that was a misunderstanding. The Army has no sense of humor."

"If you don’t get up to the mess in the next ten minutes," North warns "I’m donating the sub to the common cause."

York is still staring at the gear shift, mind racing. Just a prank. He was in the armor, it probably wouldn’t have even killed him. Except for the whole fifty miles an hour thing, but that could have been accidental. Whoever rigged this doesn’t know bikes, is all.

"York? You with me?"

Just a prank. Whoever it was gave him a good scare, and kudos to them. He’ll just have to be more careful when something feels off, next time.

"You know what," he says, and rests his head back on the concrete "I’ll see you later. I’m not really hungry."

 

* * *

 

_A blue post-it note, the adhesive worn away. The grid of creases on it indicate that it had once been folded into a very small square._

  
_L,_   
_You haven’t been eating, so I made you some leftovers. Put the plate in the microwave (remove this note first). Turn the microwave on. Wait. Remove the plate. Eat the food. Don’t make me hurt you._   
_-A_

_  
P.S. Your mother called. She wanted to know why you grew up to be such a disappointment, and also what we’re bringing to Thanksgiving. I’m thinking pie._

* * *

 

  
It’s Thursday, and York’s eggs taste weird. He sets his fork down very deliberately and stares across the table at Wyoming.

"Hey, man," he gestures at Wyoming’s omelet "that seem normal to you?"

"Bland and Sahara-dry as always," Wyoming assures him, and wipes at his mustache with a napkin.

"Just put some hot sauce on them," North says, but what does North know, he doesn’t eat eggs and York has a hunch and York has eggs _every morning_.

"Uh huh," York gets up and scrapes the rest of his breakfast into the trash can. The eggs lie there on the bottom of the black bag, pale and glutinous.

York goes to make himself throw up, just to be safe.

That hunch follows him around the rest of the week, prickling at the back of his neck, turning his stomach. It feels odd, like when he’s trying to remember the word for something and it’s just on the tip of his tongue— something he knows, deep in his gut, but can’t articulate. He has nightmares where he’s being chased through dark halls, or riding full-tilt downhill on a bike he can’t control, dreams where he’s missing hands or handlebars. He forgets them almost immediately in the mornings, but the sensation of reckless, unchecked speed doesn’t leave him. His palms tingle with vertigo at innocuous moments, and he’s faking all his smiles.

"Careful with the wall outlet in the room," Wash tells him, on Saturday morning "I got a bad jolt from it. Something’s out of whack."

York knows what’s happening, with _just_ less than a reasonable degree of certainty. What he does know with complete certainty is that if it’s true, he cannot share it. Not even with Wash.

 

* * *

_A photograph, pixellated and printed on unvarnished paper, tucked into the back pocket of the fifth Moleskine. Gloved hands are lifting a coffin. The flag folded on top is unfamiliar to him._

_On the reverse side, in blue pen, three lists of five items each:_

_Neutrality, Melancholia, Anger, Jealousy, Metastability_

_Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance_

_Deceit, Logic, Trust, Ambition, Rage_

* * *

 

York wakes up. The door is open.

  
The room is dark, and so is the hall, mostly, but the faint glow of bio-luminescent strips along the walkway ripples and contorts just enough for him to make out a human form. It’s standing in the doorway, clear limbs and transparent torso sucking in the low blue light, bending and distorting it.

York tries to open his mouth, but he can’t move his jaw. All of him is locked up, stiff and heavy except for his heart, which is trying to hammer its way out of his ribcage. He’s sweating.

The figure moves closer, passing into the murky gray of the room, sliding soundlessly towards him, growing. He has to get to his Magnum. It means him harm. He has to get up. He has to get up, why can’t he move his arms—

York wakes up. The door is open. The lights in the hall are brightening from their early morning cycle to the blue-white florescence of 0500. Wash is standing in the doorway with his boots dangling by the laces in one hand, and scratching his chest through a grey PFL t-shirt with the other.

"I’m going to the mess," he says, and York blinks dumbly at him, raises one arm to shield his eyes and is vaguely surprised to find that it works "you should get up." He vanishes down the hall.

York sits up slowly, and stares at the door as it hushes shut, cutting the room into darkness again. It leaves a red and blue shuddering rectangle in his field of vision. He closes his eyes tight. In the staticky after-image of the door, there’s Wash’s silhouette— too tall, too broad. 

York opens his eyes again. His sheets are damp.


	2. Chapter Two

"A night terror," North tells him, over the green plastic partition wall of the shower. North’s tall enough to see over the thing, but he always keeps his eyes straight ahead in the locker room, like it’s a habit that got beaten into him early "South used to have them all the time. They’re not uncommon with sleep disorders."

"There was someone there," York insists, and scrubs too roughly at his face with the loofah. It opens the scab on his eyebrow again, goddamn it.

"Paralysis, terror, dark figure in the doorway? That’s a textbook night terror, York." North cuts the water on his side of the partition, and the door rattles as he pulls his towel off the hook. "We’re all stressed out. Go to the medbay if you’re worried, they’ll give you some Prazosin."

 _You’re not listening to me_ , York thinks, but wonder of wonders, it doesn’t actually come out of his mouth. “Not a dark figure. They had active camo.” He blinks watery blood out of his eye, catches a copper drop of it on his tongue.

North dries his hair off with vigorous rubbing. “You know Connie got downgraded. No one’s using that unit.”

"I _know_ that,” and of all the times for North to not do his weird ‘read York’s mind and finish his sentences’ routine, it has to be today “don’t you think I know that?”

"So, logically, you know it couldn’t have been anyone." The door of the other stall opens and closes. North’s feet slap along the tiles towards his locker.

York cuts the water off with the heel of his hand, and stands there dripping for longer than is really necessary, trying to come up with a retort. It doesn’t really matter. Arguing with North is like trying to move an elephant by poking it with a twig. He’ll just politely tolerate you and after a half-hour start looking vaguely confused as to why you’re getting so frustrated.

"York?"

"Yeah," York wraps his own towel around his waist and heads for his gym bag "forget it. It’s fine. You on for poker tonight?"

North makes a face at his locker, since eye contact is verboten. “I have to present another report to Internals.”

That’s surprising. York stops rummaging in his bag to stare at him. North’s got his sweats on and he’s pulling a T-shirt over his head, but York has a split second to make out the wounds on his chest. They’re well on their way to healing. North’s been back at a full training load for over a week. “What, about Bjorndal?”

"Yeah." North actually fidgets, rubs the hem of his shirt between his thumb and forefinger "I probably shouldn’t be telling you this."

"Your equipment," York starts, but North’s shaking his head.

"It’s South. She’s on probation. They want me to ‘explain’ the transcripts again, and I don’t know—" he huffs out a breath "it sounds worse, for her, than it was. Part of it was my fault."

York makes an inquisitive noise. The way he heard it, no way any of it was _North’s_ fault. Just South being reckless and opportunistic as usual.

"I keep trying to help her, but I think I’m just making it worse," North says to his feet, and pulls his socks on "and they won’t let up about it. I’ve become a ‘primary witness’," he affects finger quotes "like it’s a crime. And there’s paperwork. Everything has to be done to exacting detail, and in triplicate." He sighs, heavily. "You know how the Director is."

 _Do I?_ York thinks _Do any of us, really?_

"Shit sucks, man," he says, with genuine sympathy, and gets to dressing himself so that he can have an actual face-to-face conversation with North again. You know, one of those interactions with body language and eye contact and all that stuff people who don’t mistakenly think their coworkers are raging homophobic dicks do "But probably for the best."

North yanks the laces of his boots so tight the leather creaks, and York has to rewind. Oh. That didn’t come out right _at all_.

"Not South. I mean," he corrects, pulling a shirt on over his head "You. Poker. Hearts and sleeves and Carolina cleaning you out and all."

"Right." North just sounds resigned, and a little like his mind is already drifting off elsewhere, to that private world he shares with his twin where everything is currently going to shit "Listen, I have to go look over a few things before I— I’ll see you later. Please go to the medbay."

York has no intention of going to the medbay, but he says “Yeah” anyhow. North doesn’t even seem to notice, and he’s gone within seconds, shoulders hunched as he strides out of the locker room with his hands in his pockets.

York swings his locker open and reaches for the stick of deodorant he keeps on the top shelf as he rummages with the other hand through the gym bag for his belt and cargos. His fingers hit cool metal. He frowns, and looks up.

The locker is completely empty. York knows he opened the right one, but he double-checks the plaque on the front anyway. Then he makes a circuit around the room, opening each and every locker, including the ones he has to pick. His stuff is nowhere to be found.

"Okay," he says aloud to the empty room "this is getting ridiculous."

Predictably, there’s no response.

"That’s your grand plan, Einstein? Make me smell like B.O. all day so no one will want to share blocks with me? You’re losing your touch."

He has a fucking nuisance prankster. York’s a little relieved, if annoyed. Maybe the last few weeks really _have_ just been a coincidence.

 

* * *

_A low-resolution photocopy of a letter. The original must have been on textured paper, because there’s black spots like static all across the page. The letterhead at the top has a coat of arms and reads “School of Informatics: University of Edinburgh”._

_Dr. Church,_

_We at the Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications (CISA) read your latest communique with great excitement, but also trepidation. I think you know why. My colleagues and I remain deeply interested in your work, but unfortunately we cannot continue to assist you in procuring Artificial Intelligences for such experimental purposes. Please know that this decision was not made lightly, nor was it an easy one. I understand from my cousin that you have been reaching out to the military for additional funding opportunities, and I wish you and your team the best of luck._

_Yours in the spirit of responsible scientific inquiry,_

_Dr. Elise Hargrove, Director of Research_

* * *

 

 

What’s not a coincidence, what even the rest of the team can tell is not a coincidence, is how York’s the only one out of three “volunteers” who doesn’t get live ammunition.

He doesn’t actually remember the grenade going off, which is probably a mercy. The last three minutes of the fight are a blur to him, which is apparently a thing that happens with head trauma.

What he does remember is being 0 for 8 in paintball, sore and not a little humiliated, but having what almost amounted to a good time because watching Agent Texas move was a fucking religious experience. Then he remembers seeing Wyoming pass a clip off to Maine, and suddenly there’s live fire and no one is having fun anymore, least of all York. He grabbed Wyoming by the shoulder, told him to chill out, and Wyoming shrugged him off. After that, things get hazy.

When he wakes up in medical his entire body hurts, like all his skin is one giant bruise. York barely notices because it feels like someone has driven a steel bar through his left eye straight into his brain, and it’s so overwhelmingly painful that Foxtrot-12, who keeps a little jar in his trunk of the lead they’ve pulled out of him over the years, has nothing to compare it to. Consciousness itself is nauseating, and when he hears someone say his name, he thinks it’s his mother, because clearly he is in Hell.

It’s not his mother. It’s not Carolina, either, even though it sounds something like her, only a touch deeper and less concerned than Carolina could ever be about York losing half of his face. It’s that woman from the training floor. The one in black. She shot him in the junk. York can’t bring her name up at the moment, but it takes more than a little blinding agony to forget someone who shoots you in the junk. She was in danger, he remembers that. He was trying to help her, but it didn’t work. He messed up.

"You have to— stay away," York says, and the sound of his own voice is so slurred he’s not sure even _he_ really understands what’s coming out of his mouth, but he knows it’s important “Away. I’m bad luck.”

"I don’t believe in bad luck," she tells him. Her voice is very calm. "Or accidents."

York has to close his good eye because he can see his reflection in her helmet, and the gauze over his left eye is so dark with blood that it’s black. Maybe she’ll be alright, if she stays in the armor.

"You’re number six on the board now, you know," says the woman in black, and York has the vague sense that this information should matter to him, but it really doesn’t "mostly because you stopped firing in the last round. Idiot."

York’s world is going fuzzy again, his head throbbing where that hole is. There’s a buzzing noise, but he can’t tell if it’s coming from outside or if it’s just his ears ringing.

"Don’t worry," she says, "I’ll stay through your surgery."

 _Why_ , York thinks, and passes out.

 

* * *

_An entry in blue pen:_

_12/15 (Earth): α’s integrative matrix continues to resist our best efforts in the manipulation of his pain receptors. C has suggested to me that his resilience might be considerably lower in the sphere of emotional trauma, although the absence of Fragment β will make using this to our advantage more complicated. Nevertheless, I suspect that his basic hypothesis is correct— provided that α retains the capacity to remember, we will be able to continue extractions. C was uncomfortable relaying this suggestion to me because of, as he put it, what it might imply about α’s Cognitive Impression Model. I have corrected him on the matter; information never displeases me._

* * *

 

The attendant nurse pulling her gloves on with a snap is what wakes York up. He can’t feel his face. He opens his right eye and then shuts it immediately when the florescent ceiling panel sends red pain searing through to the back of his skull.

"Agent York," says the nurse, and he groans. His tongue feels swollen in his mouth, but also like it’s not a part of him, just a fleshy clump stuck behind his teeth.

"What day is it?" he asks, and it comes out _whadassit_. He cracks the eye open again, just a sliver. There’s white gloved hands in his field of vision. The nurse is touching his face. He had no idea.

"Earth calendar?" she frowns, and there’s only the faintest sensation of tugging around his left eyebrow "I wouldn’t know. You’ve been out of enucleative surgery for eighteen hours." The white-gloved fingertips come back bloody. "I have to clean this out, Agent York. There’s pus."

At this point, York is lucid enough to understand that ‘this’ means his eye-socket. Great.

"You’ve received an orbital implant," she’s saying, and the tugging continues. York can hear the rasp of cloth "Just plain hydroxylapatite. Once it heals, you can be fitted for an ocular prosthesis, if you’d like. It’s mainly cosmetic."

York figures that means his vision’s not going to come back. ‘Hydroxylapatite’ doesn’t sound like something you can stick human nerve cells into and expect good results. He reaches a hand up automatically to touch, to feel if at least the rest of his face is there, and bangs it on his nose accidentally.

"Uh," he mumbles, and the nurse looks down at him with a pitying expression, wipes her fingertips on a square of gauze.

"Unfortunately you’re going to have to get used to the loss of depth perception," she says "it just takes time."

York’s face is starting to work again; whatever they injected into it is wearing off. He works his jaw experimentally, runs his tongue along his teeth. “Thanks.” It’s only a little slurred.

A memory pulls at him. _I don’t believe in bad luck_. “Was there someone else here? Another agent, a woman?”

The nurse shakes her head. “I’m afraid not. I’m sure your team is concerned, Agent York, but no one’s been permitted to visit. Maybe later today.” She snaps the gloves off and drops them in the hazardous waste processor by the door. “I’m sorry about your accident, by the way.”

— _or accidents_.

"Yeah," York says, distractedly "thanks."

She closes the door behind her, and York finally gets his hand up to the side of his face. Aside from swollen skin and what feels like rows of stitches, everything’s intact and where it’s supposed to be. His left eyelid is still there, but as much as he tries he can’t move it normally. York forces it up manually and taps on the orbital implant with a nail. It sounds like plastic.

"All fun and games," he muses, and heaves himself up into a sitting position.

It’s a standard recovery room, with two empty beds on either side of him, and a rolling table latched to his cot with a glass of water and an individually sealed protein block. York has never been less hungry in his life, but he pulls the thing open and chokes it down anyway. Eighteen hours is a long time, and the weaker he is, the more the morphine is going to make him hazy and stupid. He has to think.

"Right," he says to the camera over the door "So. That wasn’t a very good prank."

The red light on the camera blinks, one two, one two. Five beds in the recovery room, and it’s pointed directly at his cot.

 

* * *

_A sketch of a woman. She’s wearing fatigues and holding a child. The drawing is not very good— amateurish at best, but there’s a softness to it. York doesn’t recognize her. Her face is turned away._

* * *

 

York’s afraid to stay in the infirmary any longer than he has to. There’s lots of ways to kill a person in a hospital, and even more ways to make it look like an accident. All Leonard Church needs to do is get one intern or night janitor to slip something into York’s morphine drip and that’s it, lights out for him.

The Director doesn’t even look up when he sidles out onto the bridge.

"Don’t be so quick to give away my job," York says, grinding his teeth against the pain. The stitches pull and his face is swollen. His head throbs. This is going to _suck_.

It does, indeed, suck. York cracks a Charon holo-lock in less than twelve seconds (a heavily modified _Dalton 38_ , and he’s never leaving home without his bump keys ever again), but trips an alarm hidden in, of all things, a 24-piece Altekruse puzzle. He didn’t even _need_ to assemble it to get the door open, but it was just so tempting and automatic, like being presented with a complimentary Rubik’s cube.

"Whoever designed this is an asshole," he informs Carolina, who despite her light tone is clearly Not Happy "I’ll just, uh. Go deal with that now."

"Please do," she tells him, and between planting trackers and disabling the alarm and listening to Wash whine over the one-to-one about _guns that bounce_ , York’s already thinking about too many things at once by the time they’re all up on the roof. It’s a lot of people, most of them not happy to see York.

The one holding a gun on him calls him ‘dickhead’, which is just uncalled for.

"Easy, easy. No reason to get all dramatic, okay?" he says, hands up and palms open, looking as non-threatening as possible while Carolina slips out of his line of sight "Let me take a crack at it."

"Just fucking do it, already." Asshole’s barrel follows his head much tighter than York’s comfortable with. He’s guessing he won’t get lucky a second time and just lose the other eye. Nah, with the caliber on that thing? He’ll be a red slushee inside the helmet.

"Easy, easy man-" York takes one look at the front panel and forgets about the gun. He’s got way, way bigger problems all of a sudden.

"Uh," he says, and he knows exactly what’s going on even before his brain can articulate it in proper English, he’s tilting his head up automatically even though there’s no way he’ll be able to see the MOI from down here, skyscraper or no "this isn’t a bomb."

He should probably start running, but Carolina had given him the ‘stall for me’ hand signal and it wouldn’t make much difference anyhow. York’s still staring up at the impossibly pretty cirronimbus clouds— how long since he’d been planet-side somewhere with such a clear atmosphere?— as several dozen red laser guides beam down from somewhere far, far overhead and come together to lock onto the transmitter.

 _A vengeful god_ , he thinks, stupidly. This cannot be happening. This is _insane_.

 

* * *

_A graphite rubbing of what must be a dog-tag, although the shape of it is non-standard. The bump of the ball-chain is dark and the letters are hard to make out where the pencil was pressed too hard to the paper. It looks as if it were done in a hurry._

_Nguyen, Allison, A Pos_

_785-34-6432_

_ODST Sm_

_No Pref_

* * *

 

It takes less than a second, and then one hundred and ten floors of glass and steel is skewered down the middle like a kebab. The sound of it is impossible. York feels the roof caving in under them, and along with Wash and Carolina sprints to the side of the building, because there’s nowhere else to go. Wash is making a long, low sound like a frightened cat into York’s ear on the one-to-one.

"This _must_ be karma for kicking Maine out the window,” Carolina gasps, and then she’s over the edge.

 _I don’t wanna do this_ , York thinks, but what comes out is “Fuck fuck _fuuuuuuck_ —!”

Falling from that high up takes a long, long time. It stretches out in slow motion, and he’s got a while to think as he plummets. Mostly about gravity, as it turns out, and what’s going to happen to his body once the falling part is over. At this speed, going head first, the impact will probably telescope his skull into his ribcage and his hips, like a collapsing human slinky. It’s really not a nice thought.

When Carolina kicks off from the sarcophagus, he swears his heart stops. That can’t have been part of the plan. She’s supposed to land in the Pelican, not Wash— Carolina’s not disposable. Wash is probably disposable, and York’s managed to move himself straight from the “valuable asset” category to the “actual military target” category, bypassing the ‘disposable’ column entirely. He wonders if the Counselor keeps a spreadsheet.

"Whelp," he says, and he’d swallow the nervous spit collecting in his mouth if he wasn’t plummeting head-first past one hundred and ten floors of skyscraper, "there goes our ride."

"You think maybe we should have had a fallback plan?" Carolina asks over the comm, and it sounds like she’s smiling. Like Carolina ever has a fallback plan. Like she ever _needs_ one.

Which, oh. _Oh_. They’re in a _car_.

It still really, _really_ fucking hurts. York has a literal death-grip on the frame and his stomach flips as his trajectory does a harsh 90 degree turn from vertical to horizontal. His shoulders are screaming, they have to be going at least 65 mph. Mercifully, Maine reaches back with his giant lumberjack arms and tugs the both of them into the cab. York’s flat-out stunned for a moment, and he lies there in the foot-well for a good ten seconds, staring up at the sky as they speed into a tunnel. The lights zip by like a strobe, and then the sound of the building full-out collapsing, a massive boom followed by the crash of thousands of tons of falling glass, brings him back to his senses.

"Drive," Carolina orders, and York scrambles for the wheel as Maine makes way and she climbs out of the cab onto the gunner’s platform. He figures this probably isn’t a good time to tell her about the whole depth perception thing. The suit will take care of most calculations; it’s already mapping the freeway out for him Frogger-style on his HUD.

"The motherfucking MAC cannon," he whispers to himself as Carolina tries to get North on the line, because he can’t _not_ "What have I gotten myself into?"

* * *

_A sheet near the middle of the last notebook, covered almost entirely in black grease pencil. It wasn’t until he turned the page and saw the indentations that he realized it wasn’t just random scribbling. No, it was one word, over and over, overlapping and filling in gaps until the whole sheet was crammed tight with pitch- Allison Allison Allison._

* * *

 

 

"Fucking scut work," says South, for the fourth time, and "We _know_ ,” says Wash, for the second.

York doesn’t have their usual one-to-one set up, partly because the ODST vacuum suits they’re wearing don’t allow for simultaneous broadcast on multiple channels, and partly because any mission with South which doesn’t include Carolina or North invariably devolves into them all bullshitting on the main comm line.

And it _is_ scut work. “Kitchen Patrol,” York agrees, hoping camaraderie will calm her down rather than get her going. He’s never been able to figure South out.

"Welcome to the bottom of the board", Wash snarks.

York gives a mental shrug. He’s not that concerned about the board, and now that he’s had a few days to learn what adjustments to make to his aim, he’s creeping back up again. Another week of graded CQC with Connie as distracted as she’s been lately, and he won’t have to do Leonard Church’s garbage runs anymore. Well, he might end up _being_ one of those garbage runs, but he’s trying not to think about that one too hard today. He already jumped at a shadow in the hall this morning, and it set his heart to racing so fast he didn’t even need his cup of breakfast coffee. (He drank it anyway, because North, as always, makes it for him, and tends to look worried if York doesn’t go for it right away.)

No, today’s going to be _fine_. York looks up from checking his gear again to scan their refurbished subprowler. South’s currently cooling her heels in the co-pilot’s chair, watching Wash navigate the thing with what York can tell, even with the helmet on, is her particular brand of envious boredom. She’s off probation but the Counselor has been making it very difficult for her to complete necessary re-certifications, one of which is stealth vehicle operation. Meanwhile, North gets his re-certification tests pushed forward by whoever manages these things. He’s very bothered by it, and York doesn’t blame him. It seems like the chain of command is needlessly bullying her, and then treating her twin with deference just to rub it in.

Then again, no one’s trying to _murder_ her, so as far as York’s concerned she’s having a better week than he is.

Right. Not going there right now.

"Why are we wearing these things, anyhow?" South asks, picking at the Kevlar BDU with gloved hands "I feel like a marshmallow. And what’s with all the pockets? Who needs this many pockets?"

The Recon variant does leave a lot of undersuit exposed, but York’s a big fan of the pockets. He’s got a chocolate bar in one of them. For emergencies, of course.

"The point is you don’t get shot at, because no one can see you," Wash deadpans, and takes them into a wide curve when the navigation system charts a green dot on the main screen "or hear you. There’s our target."

York’s actually pretty sure they’re in ODST gear because Leonard Church can’t be seen poking around the wreck of an unregistered cruiser without uncomfortable questions being asked. If they die out here the Project won’t be stepping forward to claim them, and it will be up to Special Warfare Command to explain why the Navy is salvaging scrap from pirate ships. This particular wreck has been pulled into orbit around Talitsa’s gas giant, and apparently the Director has reason to believe there’s something valuable on board. Considering all the effort they put in to getting hold of a giant metal box that no one even opened, York can’t imagine what it could be. Maybe a giant metal pyramid, just for variety..

"Innies beat us here?" York asks, even though he knows damn well they have.

"Yeah." Wash taps on the screen "I got two Longswords idling 12 klicks out and a Pelican docked, so they probably have boots on the ground in there."

"Can’t you get us in through here? We’re cloaked, aren’t we?" South’s leaning over Wash’s shoulder, tracing a path on the screen.

"We can slip by the Longswords, but if we try to, um, mate with what’s left of the dock there, that Pelican is going to see us. You two have to drop, I’m sorry."

South grumbles, and heaves herself up from the chair to retrieve her suppressed SMG, jet gun, and tether line.

"Good thing we have all these pockets," York says, and she gives him the finger.

"I’m gonna try and angle the bay so you can land grapplers on the engine casing," Wash tells them "so they won’t hear you from inside. Don’t worry, the whole wreck’s cold. Don’t drop off until I say so. Mark."

"Synch," they reply, South grumpily.

"It’s so embarrassing to have him as team leader," she complains "he’s like what, five?"

"On the board?!" Wash asks with genuine excitement as the bay slides open across from them "did I beat out Wyoming? When did it update?"

York chokes on a laugh as South says “No, you idiot, a five-year-old,” and fires her grappler dead center onto the cruiser’s partially-melted engine housing. York lands his a bit to the side.

"Drop," Wash says, sulkily, and they kick off into vacuum.

York realizes his trajectory is carrying him at the wrong angle about a third of the way down, and he grabs the line, starts hauling arm over arm. He makes it twenty yards or so until there’s a slight jerk under his palms, and he looks up in horror to see the strands of his tether cable unraveling at a point twelve yards or so away from him.

"Oh shit oh shit oh shit," he says, and tries to reel himself in as gently as possible. Tugging the line just makes another strand break open, and he hisses, letting go. This can’t be happening. He checked this cable, over and over, for exactly this reason. He must have hit a micrometeroid or a sharp bit of space junk, what are the _fucking_ odds—

"York?" Wash asks "you okay? I need you on the hull, man, clock’s ticking."

He can see that South’s already there. She waves at him, makes a ‘come on’ gesture with her arm.

"My cable," York grits out, and watches helplessly as another strand snaps.

The cruiser is rotating, dragging him with it on a long line like a hooked fish, and the tug strains the strands further. A fourth strand pops, and a fifth. The helix starts to unwind. If it breaks, he’ll be floating out here, getting farther and farther away, more and more lost—

"Shit. Don’t panic," Wash tells him "just use the jet gun, it’ll give you enough momentum. Don’t let it snap, that’ll shoot you back. Every action—"

"I know how physics works, Wash," he snaps, and reaches for the jet gun on his belt very, very carefully. Another strand. No time. He twists himself around with some effort and fires out at black nothingness, praying he’s on target.

South catches him around the waist before he bumps into the hull, and he will admit to clinging a little.

"I’m hooking you to my harness, asshole. You’re a fucking disaster," she informs him, and does just that.

"Does this mean we’re going steady," York asks, the adrenaline making him loose and stupid and giddy with relief "because I’m not sure I’m ready for this level of commitment—" she hits him upside the head, and York shuts his mouth.

Later, Wash will ask him why he freaked out so much about something so small. “You had the jet gun,” he says, sitting on his bunk and staring at York as he sorts through his laundry “I saw you check it like twelve times. And even if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t just leave you floating out there. I mean, you know that, right?”

York doesn’t know how to explain. When he fired that gun, he was pretty sure nothing was going to happen. Feeling the recoil kick him back was a genuine surprise.

"Are you afraid of open space?" Wash asks "Because it’s okay. I get it."

"Yeah," York says, staring down at a pair of mismatched socks "Yeah, that’s it."

 

* * *

_A column of newsprint, wrinkled and soft. The font bleeds slightly._

_"Often one personality is designated to hold all of the traumatic memories," says Hayek "He or she might be referred to by the host as the ‘Knower’, ‘Storyteller’, or ‘Secret Keeper’. In my thirty years of treating this illness I’ve come across two basic types of ‘Secret Keeper’; the first one, the ‘Observer’, is the easiest to deal with. Because this personality fragment does not experience any of the emotional pain of the memories, he or she can relay information about them calmly and with incredible attention to detail. The second type— I call those ‘True Knowers’— they’re still trapped in the memory, experiencing the trauma over and over. Imagine your standard re-experiencing episode in a combat veteran with PTSD. It’s like that for these personalities, only all the time. It’s very difficult to make any meaningful contact with them. Often by the time you can coax them out in treatment, they’ve had decades to go insane._ ”

* * *

 

Carolina’s sitting across from him at the mess, eating a bagel and a fruit cup.

York stares at her hands as they move, graceful and efficient even in this banal exercise, plastic spork and all.

He imagines saying it out loud. “I think the Director is trying to kill me.” It wouldn’t be hard. He could just… say it, and see what happens.

Carolina spears a hunk of reconstituted peach and chews it carefully. She swallows.”I have to go engine-side and pick up some materials from Provisions.”

"I’ll go with you," York says, too quickly.

Carolina stares at him.

"I mean," he corrects "if you want me. Company. If you want me to accompany you."

"Alright," she says, and sets the empty fruit cup on her plate "let’s go. Since apparently you don’t eat anymore."

York looks down at his cereal. It came out of an individually sealed packet, so _probably_ safe, but he still hasn’t touched it. He’s just not hungry. He drains the rest of his coffee, instead. Thank god North makes his coffee. If he had to deal with this shit without coffee, he’d just off himself and spare Leonard Church the trouble.

"You know I hear the tech guys draw straws for your gear," Carolina tells him, as they clomp down the hall. (Well, York clomps. Carolina is deadly grace personified and doesn’t ever make a sound unless she intends to.)

"What can I say, I’m a popular guy. Tell your source I’m willing to autograph anything, up to and including lingerie." The closer they get to the stern, the narrower the hall becomes. York scans idly over his datapad, which is reporting completely average heat signatures from the engine components set a full hundred meters deep into the walls around them, and tries not to feel like he’s walking inside of a bomb. Carolina’s with him. Carolina’s not disposable.

She snorts a laugh. “Draw straws _not_ to work on it, York. No one wants to be held responsible for your next equipment failure. They call you ‘Unlucky Number Three’.”

York forces his automatic grimace into a reasonable approximation of a smile. “Guess I’d better not lose my spot on the board again, then,” he says, and Carolina gives him a sympathetic look for what is entirely the wrong reason.

They approach the rotating hall that separates the bulk of the back-up engines from the slipdrive subsection. Carolina’s already up on the top of the curve by the time York steps in and reaches down to click on his mag boots, but the polarity’s borked and instead of securing him to the revolving floor panels it sends him rocketing into the ceiling. He’s not wearing his helmet, of course, and cracks himself a good one on the back of the head. Raw structural-grade titanium is not very forgiving, as materials go. York scrambles dazedly for a service rung and finds one, grips it as the hall takes them around again.

"You alright there, Lucky?" Carolina clicks over the rotator to meet him, and York glares, upside down, at her twitching mouth. Carolina likes that her squadmates have nicknames. Carolina’s his brother in arms. Carolina’s _military_ , from helmet to regulation boot.

Fuck. He can’t tell her.

"Help me out, boss," he says "I’ve fallen and I can’t get up."

 

* * *

_A business card, on standard stock. The edges are frayed, and there’s a smudged thumbprint on the reverse side. It reads, in sans serif type:_

_Eliott C. Fischer, Psy D._  
Child Psychologist and Grief Counselor  
4825 Dawson Street, Suite 2  
San Antonio, TX, 78202

* * *

"But not impossible," York argues, as they stalk through the scrap metal processing facility towards the private hangar "I mean, nothing’s impossible, right? If it’s really infinite."

The thing about working with Delta is that it makes him unclench by a _lot_. If York thought his paranoia was making him more sensitive to little details being off in his daily routine, it’s nothing compared to Delta’s impassive, baseline observational skills. York can hear his every thought, and he doesn’t doubt that if he’d had Dee with him that day at the compound, the AI would have told York that not only was his bike 448 grams heavier than usual, but that the list of inventory items aboard the MOI which weighed within 20 grams of that was very short and included the A4 standard detcord breaching charge.

It also gives him someone else to yammer at on mission, which is probably a relief for Wash. York knows his behavior lately has been making things awkward between them. Wash gets enough of his insanity in the bunk, he doesn’t need York on the one-to-one every day, too.

Incidentally, the odds of space junk clipping a tether line within eight klicks of a cruiser wreck? 4.57%. Not actually that small.

 _It is not that I disbelieve in God_ , Delta says, _It is simply that the possibility of a benign consciousness creating a universe such as the one we inhabit is vanishingly small. In order to proceed, we must presuppose the non-existence of a supreme deity, even if to do so is to risk that infinitesimal percentage. You do the same on a daily basis by declining to consider other highly unlikely theses._

"I do, huh?"

_Yes. For example, you could be lying comatose in a hospital bed, and dreaming your reality. Myself, your fellow agents, all of space and time, and the guard we are about to encounter could be figments of your imagination._

” _What_ guard?” York hisses, and stills against the wall, pulling himself into the long shadow of a structural beam “Delta, you said it was clear.”

_I apologize. This particular product of your dreaming mind is capable of ambulatory locomotion. You see why the coma theory is a poor model to operate under._

Delta’s not funny. “You’re not funny,” York informs him.

 _As you say. On your twelve o’clock_ , Delta says, mildly _Twenty yards. Incidentally, situations like this one are why Carolina disapproves of your weapon of choice. A suppressed firearm would be optimal._

"I like my shotgun," York says, and clocks the patrol on the back of the head with the tactical stock when she passes by his hiding place. She drops like a rock. "It’s got stopping power and versatility, what’s not to like?"

 _A magazine that holds more than six shells would be a good place to start._ Delta flickers into his vision, and the ceiling cam in the hall in front of them shorts out. _There is another guard in the control room. If you would like, I can distract him for you._

"You’re the best, Dee," York says, with complete and utter sincerity.

Three minutes later the MOI’s starboard coilgun is burning a hole in the hull not ten yards from him, and York takes it all back.

"You _knew_ about this?”

 _Possibly_ , says Delta, and York’s rocked by the implications of that, that Delta can _lie_ to him, that maybe Delta’s loyalty shouldn’t be assumed. That it was naive of York to assume it. It changes everything.

There’s a ripple of impossible heat, and the screech of bucking titanium. York heaves himself off the door and ducks behind the desk, but it’s too late- the beam rips blindingly across the room and then there’s nothing but the roar of vacuum.

 _This is it_ , he thinks, a little hysterically. _He actually did it. He fucking_ _ **spaced**_ _me._

 

* * *

 

_More notes scrawled in blue pen, from a moleskine close to the front of the drawer._

_α’s arrogance continues to astound. It has reached such heights that even C declines to play chess with him outside of scheduled test batteries. When pressed on the matter, α’s response has been predictably insolent; while I must admit that his accusations have merit (he is, after all, a copy) I am beginning to suspect that general malaise on his part is a sign that he is approaching the Melancholic stage. It is ahead of schedule. C has suggested that α’s exceptionally high intelligence quotient, a product of the imprint, has sped up the process of dendritic growth. I lack the time and the patience to explain why the dendritic growth model is insufficient re: predictions of rampancy. In any event, splitting will have to begin soon. Unfortunately, I have yet to acquire a suitable engineer to oversee the process_.

* * *

 

 _I did suggest that you abort_ , Delta reminds him, once York’s back in the Pelican’s troop bay, clinging to an ‘oh shit’ bar and wondering how he’s going to get a fruit basket delivered to a ship in orbit. Maybe not fruit. Maybe he’ll just get a big, empty storage cube, like the ones they keep in the hangar, and fill it with booze. She deserves nothing less.

"You’re an angel," he shouts towards the cabin, for something like the third time.

"So you’ve said," Niner replies, and the Pelican cuts a sharp angle, turning them back towards the main hangar  "Now get the hell off my ship and back to your team, I’m not making another loop around this shit hole while under fire."

York salutes her, and blasts out of the bay with a touch to the jet that definitely qualifies as overkill. Oops. He can’t exactly slow down, there’s no air resistance. “Georgia, buddy,” he muses, kicking off from a hunk of scrap and angling himself at the light field sealing the main hangar “I’m starting to get the idea.”

_Agent York. If you would just re-enable my executive control of the suit, I could—_

"Nuh uh," York says "No way. You and me, we need to have a talk. Mano y computatro."

_If I might make a suggestion, then. The obverse jets positioned just under your arms will allow you to modify your velocity._

"Great," York replies "And they’re also bombs, right? Because that is where we’re at right now, Dee, with this partnership."

 _Really, York,_ and Delta shouldn’t be able to sound so damned _disdainful_ with a voice chip that allows so little pitch variation _it is not in my best interests for you to be killed._

"Uh huh, because that would be illogical." Like anything in his life has been logical over the last two months.

_Well, yes. Please modify your velocity, York, we are rapidly approaching—_

York’s sucked into the blue light field and hits the the hull with a crack, skidding so fast along the floor he shoots sparks. Oh good. There’s friction again. He lets his helmet fall back and stares at the ceiling for a moment as North’s boots tread into his peripheral vision. He sits up, a little dazed.

"It’s nuts out there," York says, but what he means is _It’s nuts. Everything is nuts. I’ve gone nuts._

North claps him on the back, and Carolina says “let’s go, people,” in her ‘I’m the Boss’ voice, and then they’re _leaving_ him here? Seriously?

Wash reaches a hand down. York takes it gratefully, and heaves himself to his feet.

"You’re irreplaceable, you know that, right?"

Wash tilts his head at that, and must just decide to ignore it. Probably for the best. “We have to move out. Target’s relocated to Bone Valley.”

"Ugh," York groans "we’re going all the way over _there_?” He’s had enough excitement for one day, and more than enough rocketing around open space. “After what happened to Georgia?”

Wash throws his arms out and leans in, actually getting in York’s face a little. “Will someone _please_ tell me what happened to Georgia?”

York’s doesn’t answer that one, because he’s starting to wonder if maybe Georgia pissed off the wrong person, too.

 _On the positive side_ , Delta says, as York steels himself for another merry go-round of flinging himself into vacuum _the journey will give us time for that talk you wanted._


	3. Chapter Three

First Lieutenant Constance H. Lockerby, age 29, of Pirth City, Arcadia dies on 12 May (Earth), 2549.

York knows this, because by the time he, Wyoming, and Maine recover her body from the Insurrection leader’s abandoned Longsword, she’s been stripped to her undersuit, head and hands bare. Whatever knocks the ship has taken since the engines shut off have propelled her into the ceiling. Maine pulls the corpse down by the ankles, more gently than York thought he was capable of.

Aside from their head lamps and what looks like some kind of UV diode array near the pilot’s panel, there’s no light. This is how York notices the glow, through the thin cartilage of her right ear. For a moment he thinks it’s an AI port, although CT never went through even the first of the required surgeries for implantation.

Delta drops a thought into his head, unarticulated. York’s noticed he does that sometimes, when it’s obvious York is not in the mood to talk. To York, it just feels like a hunch; but a bit sharper, more compelling than his own gut feelings.

"Hold on a sec," he tells Maine, who’s closing CT’s eyelids with massive thumbs "bring her over here." He kicks off the wall towards the controls.

The glow is a meat tag, in blacklight ink: 01866-92458-CL. It takes Delta less than a second to pull up the corresponding service record.

"I don’t envy the chap," Wyoming says, brushing Constance Lockerby’s hair back into order "who has to tell her girl about this."

 

* * *

_A letter on standard 6x8” lined pad paper with the UNSC Letterhead. The writing tilts so far to the right York has to read some of the words twice to differentiate the letters._

_L— Two months until medical leave. I’m already getting fat. They’ve moved me to Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean. I don’t know if you know this, but in the twentieth-century, the island’s native population was forcibly removed by the United States military, so that this base could be built. ‘Removed’ is a nice word for it. When they declined to leave, the Navy rounded up one thousand of their pet dogs, gassed them, and burned them in furnaces in front of their owners. They named the base “Camp Justice”.  I thought you’d appreciate this, because no one remembers these people, but they do still talk about the dogs. The dogs evoke sympathy. The people do not. —A_

* * *

 

North has to pull South off of him.

On a normal day York does pretty damn well for himself in CQC, but he’s pulled Delta for the night and the last thing he expects, when stepping into the mess at 2300 with North (now AI-ified, and thus probably not disposable and a good candidate for York’s secret buddy system) for leftover brownies and a cup of coffee, is for one of his co-workers to hit him in the head with a chair.

York drops to his knees, and before he can get up, or even just try to move out of the way a little, she has him pinned to the floor and is laying into his face and chest with raw fists. York feels his nose crack almost immediately, and then catches a hook to the bad eye, which for some reason hurts much more than the immediate follow-up to his right. Like North, South is big and heavy; she outweighs him easily. Her left jab hits like a truck, and York’s dazed.

North has to be stunned, too, because it takes him a long time to respond. Or maybe he’s just conflicted; his disintegrating relationship with his twin has been glaringly obvious to all of them, and being bumped up for implantation only made it worse. As far as York can tell, they don’t even talk to each other anymore outside of missions.

After what seems like hours, South’s knuckles, red and wet with what must be his blood, vanish. Her weight eases off York’s chest; North’s hauling her up by the arms.

"Jesus, just stop, you’re going to kill him."

"I should," South roars, and kicks him in the ribs with her steel-toed boot. York doubles over on it because he can’t _not_ , it’s knocked all the breath out of him. Another one to his knee, before North drags her and her long, powerful legs out of range. York’s curled into a ball on his side, face to the floor.

"Wha?" he asks the tile, and feels blood pooling in his lower lip and cheek "Whassit?"

"I should fucking kill you, you fuck, you, _you_ —”

"It wasn’t _him_ , South!” North sounds sad; shattered, actually, and York gets it.

"Yer huh gur," he gurgles, and lets the blood run out onto his cheek, his chin "her girl."

"He cut the lights!" York has never heard South scream before. It doesn’t even sound like her. It’s high and sharp and wretched, like twisting metal.

"It wasn’t him," North says again, and York cracks his swelling right eye open just wide enough to see he’s got her in a bear-hug, back to chest "I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, he didn’t know. None of us knew."

"She was ONI," York uncurls to lie flat on the floor and licks his teeth. Blood runs back into his sinuses, though, and he sits up immediately. It makes his head spin. "Did you know that?"

"Go to the medbay," North tells him, in Team-B Leader voice "I need you to leave."

Not ‘you need to leave’.

York spits a gob of red out onto the tile. “It wasn’t me, South. I swear to god.” Neither Carolina nor Texas has spoken to him about what happened at Longshore last night. Still, York can imagine. The wound in Connie’s chest had been deep and wide, imprecise but backed by impossible force, like it was made with a meat cleaver, or an axe. There was rage in it.

 _I don’t need your help_ , Tex had told him _**Never**_ _abandon your team._

"You cut the lights," South hisses, and even with his vision hazy and limited, he can see that she’s shaking "you’re the reason she _died in the dark_.”

"Get out," North repeats, and then, softer "please."

York gets.

 

* * *

_A print-out of an e-mail, folded four-square. Portions have been blacked out._

_From: reference@library.law.yale.edu_   
_To: [redacted]_   
_Subject: RE: Query concerning rights of flash brain donor to CIM AI_   
_Attachments: UNMD_ExecutiveSummary.hl, Zahner_v_Minobe.hlx_

_Dear [redacted],_   
_I have attached a compressed file of all our library’s documents pertaining to the most relevant case, Zahner v. Minobe. It is a well-known case and is largely responsible for the UNSC’s current legal policy towards “smart” AI._   
_I hope the information contained therein can answer the specifics of your question; from the tone of your inquiry I suspect you will not like what you find. You may also find the UN Colonial Mortal Dictata of interest, especially Sections 1A/3c-d. Although often violated in spirit if not in letter, this legislation is still in effect. Please inspect the copy enclosed._

_Eliot Dugan, MLIS  
Specialist in Patent and Intellectual Property Law_

* * *

 

 _I really would prefer that you seek medical attention_ , Delta says, from York’s discarded helmet on the unmade bunk.

"What he said," Wash still hands York his own helmet, despite the complaining "also, you look ridiculous. Doesn’t he look ridiculous, Delta?"

 _I am afraid I am not in a position to make an assessment._ Yeah, Dee knows what side his bread is buttered on, alright. (“Let me put it this way,” York had said, on their long flight to Bone Valley “You go behind my back like that again? I’m gonna transfer your Reimann matrix to the snack machine in the Communications break room. You can spend the rest of your seven-year lifespan with _just_ enough brain power to differentiate between a nickel and a quarter.” _Really, York. Participating in The Director’s apparent vendetta against you would accrue me no benefit_. “Cool. I’m glad we agree.”)

York does, in fact, look ridiculous. He has his chestplate and right legplates on over his undersuit, and he’s about to stick a big grey nerd costume on his head. But needs must.

"It’s not _my_ fault some desk jockey decided the BioScan and the Healing Unit should go in different suits. It doesn’t even make sense.” York pulls Wash’s helmet on and is immediately overwhelmed by the scent of regulation soap and, of all things, mint. “The fuck? Do you chew gum in here?”

"I can’t hear you," Wash lies.

"Well, that explains it," York mutters, when the BioScan informs him that he has a blow-out fracture in the orbital floor of his left eye socket which is being agitated by— its words— _a spherical foreign object of indeterminate material_. “That’s my eyeball, okay? It’s not pretty, but it’s mine. It belongs there.”

"Are you talking to my BioScan," Wash says, even though he clearly knows the answer.

"I thought you couldn’t hear me," York snarks, and tugs the helmet off. He can already feel the Healing Unit knitting blood vessels back together and accelerating hemoglobin breakdown in his knee and chest. It tingles. The ribs are going to take a little bit longer. She cracked two of them. He pulls Wash’s helmet off and hands it back over, bringing a hand up to his hair. It’s all out of order. "You gotta loosen those fit pads up, man. No wonder you always look like a cat took a nap on your head."

Wash doesn’t bother responding to that. “Why won’t you just go to the medbay? They’ll give you painkillers, I _know_ you like those.” His voice picks up the vaguely disapproving tone it always gets when he refers to York’s less savory habits. Wash is such a boy scout.

"Unit has painkillers," York points out, although he’s not enjoying them at the moment. He hasn’t had a drink since the ‘pranks’ started, either, not even on poker nights when Niner graces them with her weekly earth-side liquor haul. Better to be alert.

 _York is concerned_ — Delta starts, and York lunges over to swipe his helmet off of the bunk. He means to just switch off Dee’s projection hub, but he’s sore and panicked and ham-fisted and instead he sends the thing onto the floor. The impact knocks the hub out of whack anyway, apparently, because Dee flickers out.

"Um," Wash says, as York scrambles under the bunk after it "was there something you wanted to tell me?"

"Delta’s about to be the new Cheese Curl manager-in-chief, is all," York says, very pointedly. At the back of his head, Delta sends him an unimpressed _Really, York_ “Lord of the Onion Rings. The Dorito Director. Colonel Corn Chip—”

"You’re very strange," Wash informs him "And I’ll find out eventually, you know. Even if I have to ask North."

"Don’t bug North right now," York warns, heaving himself back onto the bunk and resting the helmet on his pillow "I’m serious. He’s in the family therapy session from Hell."

Wash’s mouth twists. “It’s not gonna get any better, I don’t think. I just found out we’re getting moved back in the queue, again.”

"We?"

"Me and South," Wash stretches out on his own bunk, folding his arms behind his head "Carolina petitioned for the next two AI."

And what Carolina wants, Carolina gets. At least, as far as York can tell.

"Sorry, man," is all he can think to say. He doesn’t bother explaining that South’s probably way more concerned about other things at the moment. York’s still not entirely absorbed that one himself.

"I’m actually kind of relieved?" Wash sounds like he’s making a confession "I mean, I want one, Delta and Theta are great, but I don’t really want someone in my head all the time, and Sigma kind of creeps me out. Plus, could you imagine having Gamma? I mean, Jesus Christ."

"Oh yeah," York drawls, recognizing this as a golden opportunity to permanently steer the topic away from his little medbay problem "and I haven’t even told you about the _worst_ of the side effects.”

Wyoming later informs him that Wash’s screaming can be heard all the way down the hall.

 

* * *

_A photograph of a house, two-stories, adobe-style with a front porch and bright blue doors and curtains. There’s an attached garage with a motorcycle parked in it. York can’t figure out why it’s familiar until he notices a figure in the background, standing in the fenced yard, which is strewn with chairs and garbage. It’s the woman in fatigues from the pencil drawing, the one holding a child. In color it’s a little easier to make out details, but she’s still turned away from the camera. He can tell she’s blonde, though, and so is the child, who’s wearing a blue dress and white shoes._

_On the back, in black pen: home on leave for Caty’s 2nd birthday, after the chaos was over!!!_

* * *

 

 _I still do not understand why you are so reluctant to inform your teammates of the situation_ , Delta complains, as York stares dully at Carolina’s unconscious body in the Recovery room. She has a black eye now, too, so they’re a matched set. Apparently Tex knocked her out once the screaming started. York doesn’t remember, and weirdly, Delta doesn’t either. It was like a part of him had been wiped, he’d said, and that would worry York a hell of a lot more if Gamma, Theta, and Sigma hadn’t admitted to the same thing. They must have all tripped some programmed fail-safe; no one had been tampering with Dee while he was in York’s head. Maybe it was something to keep the AI from fighting each other, he didn’t know.

He’s much more concerned about the fact that three different nurses have come into the room, looked at Carolina’s chart, and expressed their surprise that she hasn’t woken up by now.

(“It’s got to be the implants,” said the last one, who caught the horrified look on York’s face and must have felt a little sympathy “we just don’t know very much about how they interact with the brain, yet. But you and Agents Wyoming, North, and Maine still wake up every morning, and there’s nothing else wrong with her, so I expect she’ll be fine.” A hand on his shoulder. “Just give her some time.”)

"Nothing else wrong with her," York mumbles into his crossed arms "Except maybe she stuck her nose somewhere she shouldn’t. And that, Dee, is _exactly_ why. I can deal. I’ve _been_ dealing.”

 _You have been ‘dealing’ so well, in fact,_ Delta observes _that you have neither slept nor eaten in thirty-six hours, because Wash was not in the bunk last night, and the mess has not been offering individually-sealed food units._

Wash not being in the bunk has actually become a problem. York can’t count 100% on him waking up if something happens, but at least York doesn’t have to spend most nights half-naked, vulnerable, _and_ alone. If nothing else, Wash would notice York’s bed being empty in the morning and know something was wrong. But Wash has been in and out of surgery for two days, now, getting things put in and then taken back out of his head. So York’s mostly been taking opportune naps at various bedsides, since when he showed up at North’s door North took one look at him and told him to make himself scarce before South stopped by and finished the job. (“Sorry York, but she really did a number on your face. And why haven’t you got that checked out, yet? I think your implant is out of whack.”)

As for the food, well.

"I’ll get the next nurse to bring me a protein block," he promises, because he _is_ starting to feel a little weak. Mostly it’s exhaustion, though— real, bone-deep physical and emotional exhaustion that’s been hounding him and building up since the day that mag blew in his face. More than once he’s found himself wondering if maybe it _wouldn’t_ be so bad, if Leonard Church finally one-upped him. The guy was trying so damn hard; that kind of persistence probably deserved to pay off, on a cosmic level. And York would have an opportunity to rest—

 _York_ , Delta says, and it’s almost gentle _You are beginning to worry me_.

"Nuh uh," he says, and shakes his head vigorously to wake himself up. It works, mostly because it shifts the implant around his cracked orbital floor, and that hurts like holy fuck, makes his good eye tear up. He stares at Carolina’s profile as his vision clears.

He doesn’t want to die. It’s just starting to feel like an inevitability, is all. Things are going to shit at a faster and faster rate, these days.

York laces his fingers with Carolina’s. He’ll stay until she wakes up, and then he’ll go get some sleep in a real bed.

 

* * *

_A newspaper clipping, laminated. The edges of the article have been cut very precisely, but the plastic casing has ragged and crooked edges. Next to the column of text is a head-shot of a blonde woman in dress uniform._

_San Antonio Native to Receive Posthumous Silver Star_

_Lance Cpl. Allison Nguyen, 28, ODST, who died November 18, 2528 at the Battle of Hat Yai will receive a Silver Star for valor, UNSC officials announced Monday. Nguyen, one of a hundred Orbital Drop Shock Troopers who invaded the Covenant-occupied colony, assisted in the capture of the Covenant main base under uncertain and disorienting conditions and without the presence of the team’s commanding officer, Maj. Douglas Sedavian. Her medal citation noted her exceptional bravery during the evacuation of Hat Yai’s ground forces (primarily Navy) following the arrival of Covenant reinforcements later that day. Although the other members of Nguyen’s ODST unit were successfully evacuated by the time of the planet’s glassing, she declined to accompany them off-world, and continued to transport truck-loads of Navy survivors to evacuation craft._

_"We couldn’t get Nguyen back onto the_ Clearidas _,” said Pfc. Ilana Fernandez “And I knew we weren’t going to so long as there were still soldiers down there. ‘Leave no man behind’, that was Allison.”_

_She is survived by her husband and a daughter, who will accept her Silver Star._

* * *

 

York wakes up to a hand over his mouth.

He thrashes and twists, but immediately there’s something impossibly heavy weighing him down from chest to knee, locking his arms in to his sides. This is it. He’s going to die. He let his guard down, he _knew_ he’d had that nighttime visitor, and now he’s going to die. Fuck North for trying to convince him otherwise. Fuck Delta for talking him into sleeping here tonight with Wash still gone—

Delta, who can’t very well do anything with York not in the suit, ( _my apologies, York_ ) flips on the projection hub to at least give him some light. But of course there’s no one there on top of York, just wrongly refracted green swimming along the vague outline of a person.

"Stop moving," Texas orders, and cuts her active camo.

Oh, of course. Leonard Church finally figured out that he was going to have to enlist one of York’s co-workers to get the job done. York’s not surprised it’s Texas— really, who else would it be?— he’s only surprised it took so long.

Delta is feeding him a list, ranked by percentage likelihood of success, of grappling hold escapes. All of the numbers are very low, and they only get lower when he factors in Tex’s weight, which is really much too heavy. Inhumanly heavy. Not the kind of thing you ever want to say to a lady, but there it is.

"Mmmphh mmmphmm," York protests, but the hand only curls tighter around his jaw. York shuts up. He’s had enough broken facial bones this week.

Tex stares at him until he stops struggling, which he eventually does, partly because it’s exhausting and partly because he’s not dead yet? Why is he not dead yet? Tex doesn’t really seem like the type to play with her food.

"I need you to listen to me," Tex says, "very carefully."

Then she takes her hand off his mouth, reaches up, and removes her helmet.

York recognizes her.

"Hat Yai," is the first thing that comes to mind, so he says it. And then, dumbly, "You’re dead."

"Yeah," Tex replies, shaking that blonde hair away from her face "apparently. I’m not exactly thrilled with that, by the way."

"Okay," York says, just daring to let himself breathe again, if only a little "but you know that’s not _my_ fault, right? I mean, I was twelve at the time. So really, there’s no need to assassinate me. Whatever he’s offering, I promise I can double it. Triple. Your own personal bank robber, right here.” He tries to wiggle his fingers for emphasis, but her leg-plates are pinning his arms to his sides so tightly moving anything hurts.

Tex gives him a very odd look. “You think _I’m_ here to kill you?”

"Is that a joke," York asks "because I gotta tell you, my sense of humor has really taken a hit these last few—"

"Shut up," Tex cuts him off with her palm over his mouth again. It’s lighter, this time. "I need your help."

Oh, thank god.

"I’m going to put Leonard Church out of business," she starts, and when York makes a surprised noise into her hand she tightens her legs impossibly further. York’s ribs creak painfully. "Let me finish. There’s things you don’t know about the Project, York. Terrible things."

 _Horror_ , York thinks, at the same moment Delta finally sees fit to project himself fully into the room. Tex glances over at him, hovering scant inches above York’s helmet on the bedside table.

 _If I may_ , he begins _I suspect we will be able to come to an agreement. York and I have our own concerns regarding the Director._

"Yeah," says Tex, and eases up off of him, climbing down onto the floor. "That’s what I thought you’d say."

 

* * *

 

_A dessicated and pressed flower falling into the crease of the moleskine, or multiple flowers, York doesn’t really know plants. There’s one stalk, but what looks like multiple heads. Each head has three light blue petals and a white center. A line of text at the top of the page in black pen, but unfamiliar cursive script, reads: Lupinus texensis._

_York picks it up with careful fingertips around the stem and sniffs it. It doesn’t smell like anything. The petals crumble when he exhales._

* * *

 

York comes to in the elevator shaft, head aching, staring at a lighter. Oh, that’s right. He shut off the gravity, and then Carolina kicked his ass. His helmet is floating a few yards “above” him. He pushes off of the ledge to move himself up, but before he can reach his arm out the magnetic safety plate behind him activates and he’s sucked back into the wall with a clang. He manages to struggle off of it by pulling himself down into the nearest workman’s compartment, a narrow hallway cut into the wall between floors.

"Can’t you turn that thing off?" he asks Delta, crouching down and tugging his left hand off the plate with some effort "I feel like Georgia’s lucky penny."

 _FILSS is in control of all ship safety features_ , Delta replies, at the exact same moment as the titanium door at the end of the workman’s nook clangs down, sealing them in and cutting off the light from the shaft _Although if you allow me twenty seconds, I may be able to access that particular mechanism._

York’s throat closes up, and his mind starts speeding to bad places. “Oh, fuck. The door. What are we next to, Dee, we’re in 4B, what is the fucking elevator next to?”

_The 4B elevator shares its starboard wall with the Sector 4 cargo bay._

Fuck. They don’t keep anything in 4, which means it’s not pressurized. York’s not slow on the uptake, at least not these days. That wall panel is like every other one on the Mother of Invention, held in by electronic bolts. You can’t unscrew them without repairman’s ID or a heat saw, but of course FILSS is the one who vets all those ID transactions in the first place, hundreds of them every day.

York bangs on the titanium siding with his fist, frantic. “FILSS! Open the door, FILSS!” There’s no response. “Open the fucking door!”

York thinks, wildly, _I’m sorry, Dave,_ and huffs his last breath out with a laugh. If he’s right, better not to have air in his lungs when—

The wall panel creaks behind him, and the compartment fills with fog. When the pressure difference kicks in, the metal square explodes out into the empty cargo bay. York grabs onto the nearest service rung with both hands and just holds. Oh god, is this _really_ how he’s going to die? It’s not funny. _I’m afraid I can’t do that,_ and it’s not even _funny_.

 _I am unsure how that is relevant_ , Delta informs him. _You will likely lose consciousness within the next ten seconds, Agent York. We are experiencing rapid decompression._

 _Open the door_ , York mentally screams at him, as his lips go cold and moisture bubbles on his tongue. His fingers are swelling. _Override her and open the fucking door!_

 _Oh, I see_ , Delta says, with his imperturbable calm, _It is a film reference._

 _Please, Dee_ , York thinks, _please please please_ —

_One moment, please._

The door opens. York hauls himself out into the elevator shaft with his skin fighting against the undersuit to expand.

He barely hears the door close behind him, he’s getting hazy, but when he looks up (or what would be up, normally) wonder of wonders, his helmet is stuck to the safety plate. The pressure difference from the compartment door opening must have dragged it into range. He lets the magnetism help him crawl up onto the plate on his belly, and angles his head into the helmet. It creates a seal with the undersuit immediately and Delta floods him with oxygen.

York lies there, stuck to the wall, and gasps like a beached fish. The lighter floats by again, and with a ‘tink!’ gets caught on the plate. York feels the magnetism cut off, but they’re very still, he and the lighter, and they float there unmoving against the wall.

 _She kept it_ , he thinks, when he finally recognizes the logo on the side _she kept it all those years_ , and then _Oh_ , when he remembers why it’s in front of him now. Four years, and he hadn’t even known that he had that to lose. It doesn’t seem fair.

He should leave it here. It’s only going to hurt him. He tucks it into his right boot.

There’s a _massive_ sound, and the elevator shaft shakes, bucking York off the wall and into a guide beam. He feels— warmer, all of a sudden.

 _Oh dear_ , says Delta _We appear to be entering Sidewinder’s atmosphere._

 

* * *

_Another letter on standard 6x8” lined pad paper with the UNSC Letterhead. The handwriting is small and precise, and all of the letters are capitalized:_

_Dad: This is my last letter. I don’t know if you received any of the others. I graduate in four days and have orders to report to Base Segundo Terra, outside Mexico City. Just FYI in case sharing a continent is too cozy for you._

_Yours, Red_

* * *

 

Tex meets him forty klicks out from the crash site, at a set of coordinates she beamed to him via an encrypted comm channel three hours ago. Dee was able to unscramble them, but it took some doing. ( _She has assistance,_ he said, simply _An organic human mind is not capable of producing a pattern this complex within the time-frame allotted her._ “No offense or anything,” York had shot back.) He has to lift a bike to get out there, but the ship is in such chaos it’s a simple matter of pulling one with winter tires out of storage and gunning it out through one of the many holes burned into the MOI’s hull.

Making any headway on Sidewinder itself is much more difficult— Delta has to scan the terrain ahead of him for areas of compacted snow and ice firm enough to drive on, and although he’s happy the constant snowfall helps cover his tracks, it makes it difficult to see.

On the other hand, it gives him a lot to think about besides Carolina. Besides Wash, who was still in the medbay when they hit the ice. Besides how the medbay was located on the MOI’s underbelly.

 _His chances of survival in that area of the ship are below seven percent, and below two percent without injury_. Delta had, at York’s request, not given the exact number when York asked if it was worth it to fight their way down there. _I calculate that making our escape alone, without an injured comrade, increases our survival chance by 86.95%._

York’s no Allison Nguyen, apparently.

Allison Nguyen’s no Allison Nguyen either, he realizes, when they finally crest the last hill and spy Tex holed up in the lee-side of an eight-foot ice-wall. She’s got a bike, too, but it’s much bigger than York’s and doesn’t look like any model he’s ever seen in the motor pool. It’s idling, like she’s worried the engine is going to freeze up, or maybe she’s just ready to rocket out of here if York doesn’t show.

"Did you get him?" York asks, when she turns to look at him. He sets his own bike to idle. It immediately turns the snow under his boot to slush, and he edges it forward onto an icier patch.

"He didn’t want to leave," Tex says, over the humming of the engines "So, no."

York frowns, and Delta, oddly enough, gives a sad little pulse of disappointment. “And the Director?”

"I don’t know." She pushes herself up and straddles the bike. York notices she’s got an M319 grenade launcher strapped to her back along with her MA5K Carbine and a ring of frag grenades. Expecting vehicular pursuit, then. "We need to go, York. With Delta, you’re high priority for their recovery efforts."

 _I agree with Agent Texas_ , Delta supplies _Although, considering that she is likely employing an AI of her own, it would be safest for all of us were we to part ways here, thus presenting smaller targets._

"Wait," York says, because he’s taken a few knocks to the head and he’s still trying to navigate his way through the conflicting emotions that have been hammering him since he met Carolina in that elevator— hope, loss, shame. Freedom, and with it a new kind of fear, that of uncertainty.

Tex waits. He can’t think of anything to say. Thank you for helping me get out? Aren’t we abandoning them? Why haven’t you aged? 

"Why did you stay with me," he asks "in surgery?"

Tex tilts her head to the side a bit, but doesn’t turn to look at him. “You know why.”

"I don’t," York insists, "I don’t understand any of it."

"Do you really want to know," Tex does crane her head over her shoulder then, but the helmet is blank and emotionless as always "how many times Leonard Church has killed _me_?”

York doesn’t have anything to say to that.

"See you around, York," Texas says, and sprays him with ice and a roar of engine, plotting a smooth dark path into the distance.


End file.
